Joe Soucheray: A pox on Ford if it won't save St. Paul plant's surviving corner

The Save Our Ford Heritage Committee is asking Ford to preserve its original showroom, built in 1925, in the northwest corner of the Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Ford officials say that could interfere with future development plans, and stabilizing the site would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars as adjoining buildings are demolished. (Courtesy photo)

Joe Soucheray

The northwest corner of the Ford plant is still standing, but everything behind it is mowed down. Twisted iron beams are visible behind the screening fences. Views have changed when you drive along Mississippi River Boulevard because the yonder hills that give Highland Park its name now come into play.

The surviving corner must be saved. I am loath to spend other people's money, for we have too much of that going on these days, but why the Ford Motor Co. would allow the complete destruction of the plant, rather than spend an estimated $500,000 to secure that final piece and allow it to remain standing is a mystery to me.

"From what I am hearing unofficially," Brian McMahon said, "the endgame is near. From what I am hearing, they have met at the highest levels of the company in Detroit and the decision has been made to go all the way with the demolition."

Well, I would place a voodoo curse on Ford if I could, if it actually allows this surviving corner to disappear completely from the heritage of what they called America's most beautiful urban manufacturing campus. Ford will spend a couple of million dollars on a single Super Bowl ad, but it can't see the marketing merits in preserving an ongoing presence in St. Paul?

McMahon, an amateur historian who, along with Tom Murray and Bruce Nelson, has been keeping up the pressure with a group called Save Our Ford Heritage Committee, came up with additional reasons to save the last corner.

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"It will be at least three years before anything happens to that site," McMahon said. "Why not save the showroom? Ford could display cars there. It could be a meeting place, a museum, a restaurant."

As recently as late October, McMahon, Murray and Nelson organized a gathering at the Hillcrest Community Center. It attracted hundreds of people on a rainy Saturday, including former employees, for whom the plant meant more than a job. It was the laying on of industrial hands that connects the city to its manufacturing roots.

And why let the site stand cleared for three years or more when the presence of the 1925 showroom corner of the site could only enhance whatever future development ends up there? It is a mystery to me why this is even a question.

Now, one thing is true. So long as the corner still stands, there is a chance of its survival. The city would have to put more pressure on Detroit than it currently is mustering -- "Hey, Ford, we put a lot of tax dollars into that location!" -- and the executives at Ford would have to come to their senses and realize that the money they would spend to fortify the northwest corner could not possibly affect their bottom line. I was unable to reach the mayor, but I have to believe Chris Coleman would be eager to make one more phone call.

What Ford would get out of the preservation, I think, would be immeasurable. I mean, if it pays for it, it could permanently install that beautiful Ford script on the roof. It could be the Ford Corner, a development of its own.

The restaurant, though presumably run by restaurateurs, could be called Ford's. Or the Ford Museum, which former Ford employees would be only too happy to staff.

We cannot live on public development alone. We can't continue to pass off light rail and, now, streetcars, to entice development, which probably means only more public money. I realize that isn't Ford's problem. If they are going to get into the saving-cities business, they have quite a bit on their plate right there with Detroit.

But they aren't being asked to save a city. They are being asked to save one of their first and premier showrooms, from 1925. They are being asked to preserve a piece of manufacturing legacy that is all but disappearing from America. They are being asked to leave their name in place, for Henry's sake and ours.